JurisGuide

Empowering MUET students to report, track, and resolve complaints with real-time status updates.

Comment

Inspiration

The idea for JurisGuide came from the everyday struggles students face when reporting campus issues like harassment, hostel problems, attendance disputes, and cafeteria complaints. With no centralized system, complaints get lost in WhatsApp messages, emails, or verbal conversations. We wanted to create a transparent, accountable, and student-friendly solution that allows students to report issues, track progress, and ensure proper resolution. By using technology, we aimed to bridge the gap between students and administration, promote transparency, and make complaint resolution faster and more reliable for everyone.

What it does

The website is fully operational and can be used by MUET students for complaint management. It includes core functionalities such as:

Student Signup/Login – Secure registration using @muet.edu.pk email only

Submit Complaint – 7 complaint categories (Harassment, Hostel Issues, Attendance, Cafeteria, Accident, Misbehave, Clash between students)

Track Complaints – Real-time status tracking (Pending → In Progress → Resolved → Closed)

Rate Resolution – 1-5 star rating system with optional feedback

Satisfaction Validation – Checkbox to confirm if issue is properly resolved

Admin Dashboard – Complete complaint management with analytics

Search Complaints – Quick filter functionality

Delete Pending – Students can delete complaints before admin action

How we built it

Our team consisted of four members:

Muqadas – Designed the interface using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and Bootstrap 5. Developed the backend using PHP 8.2.

Raza – Managed the MySQL database, including database design, relationships, and query optimization.

Badal – Deployed the application and managed server configuration.

Bilal – Performed testing, bug tracking, and quality assurance.

After finalizing the UI design, we focused on building a fully functional web application with all the necessary features including complaint submission, real-time status tracking, rating system, and admin management panel.

Challenges we ran into

One of the major challenges was implementing multi-stage status tracking with 5 statuses (Pending → In Progress → Resolved → Closed → Pending Review), each requiring separate datetime columns. Ensuring only the correct column updates without overwriting previous dates was complex, but we overcame it using conditional UPDATE queries with CASE statements.

Managing sessions across /student/ and /admin/ directories while preventing unauthorized access was another technical challenge. We had to add session variable checks on every page, as one missed check could expose sensitive admin data to students.

Finally, implementing the satisfaction checkbox logic was complex. The checkbox had to update status to Closed (if checked) or Pending Review (if unchecked), but only if the complaint was already in Resolved status. This three-state dependency required nested if-else conditions with database verification, which we successfully implemented through extensive testing.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of successfully building a fully functional university complaint management system from scratch, overcoming technical challenges, and learning new technologies along the way. The system is stable, efficient, and ready for real-world use at MUET.

What we learned

Before building this platform, we had limited knowledge of how complaint management systems operate in universities. Throughout the development process, we gained a deep understanding of their working model and how to structure our own version effectively. On the technical side, we had minimal experience with PHP sessions, MySQL joins, and status tracking with date stamps. This project provided real-world experience implementing session-based authentication, foreign key relationships, and multi-stage status workflows.

What's next for JurisGuide

We plan to develop a mobile app for both iOS and Android to enhance accessibility and user experience. Additionally, we aim to introduce email notifications for status updates, file uploads for evidence, anonymous complaint options, analytics dashboards for admins, and expansion to other university campuses.

Share this project:

Updates